BUILA
MINUTES: Executive Committee Meeting 6th January 2015, London
Present: Charlene Allen (Chair), Keith Brown, Martyn Edwards, Sioned Evans, Naomi
Graham, Andrew Mandebura, David Tobin, Philippa Collins Robson (Secretary)
Present Via Skype: Roisin McEvoy, Bobby Mehta
Apologies: Jeremy Burgess, Kim Hadley, Martin Maule.
Minutes of the Last Meeting:
The minutes of the meeting held on the 4th November 2014 were recommended for
approval.
1 Matters Arising:
1.1 Exec Movements for 2014/2015: Action: Jeremy to circulate password for the
document he has set up.
1.2 Constitution Changes: .Action: Jerry, Charlene & PCR to liaise and circulate
amends to executive.
1.3 Annual Report: Action: PCR to draft the report focussing on progress
against the Manifesto, Charlene to produce the introduction and both to
liaise over the final version.
1.4 Collation of Responses: There were two options if using Survey Monkey to
collate the responses of the Directors, a free option or gold option which cost £300
but offered more functionality. BUILA would own the data from either option and
both offered the opportunity to do multiple surveys. It was agreed that Roisin would
set up an account using the [email protected] address and that she and Andy
would look at some key questions for directors in advance of the Directors Forum.
Action: PCR to provide the details of the address, Roisin & Andy to explore
questions for the directors.
1.5 Agents: Charlene had not managed to meet with Enzo before Christmas to see
how he thought BUILA might play a part in taking the Agent issue forward but was
planning to contact him in January. Action: Charlene to speak to Enzo and
report back to the next meeting.
2 Finance
2.1 Philippa had circulated the latest update on expenditure and income, the only
significant change was the increase in executive costs in response to the request
at the last meeting to submit expenses promptly. It was agreed that Philippa would
circulate the revised executive expenses guidelines with the claim form. Action:
PCR to circulate.
2.2 Membership Fee: Charlene put forward a proposal to increase the membership
fee for the next academic year. Although BUILA had healthy reserves the
ambitions of the manifesto would come at a cost, like the regional roadshows,
country market groups, lobbying activity and proposed directors’ activity including
research. The BUILA conference had also reached a level which needed to be
maintained and making the conference more expensive to delegates could affect
the numbers members sent, which the executive did not want. There was some
discussion about the level of the increase and the need to demonstrate added
value to the membership. The amount had remained the same for the last 6 years
and there had been much support for raising the fee at the last Directors Forum. It
was agreed that Philippa look at the additional costs needed as a backup to the
increase and that the increase be announced at the Directors Forum in March.
Action: PCR to cost up and discuss with Charlene.
3 Conference
3.1 Venue: Liverpool University had agreed that they would book the conference
facilities through their international office which solved the VAT question. Philippa
would be liaising with Dan to finalise the contract and the draft contract would be
looked at and discussed during the visit by the conference team in January.
3.2 Dinner Venue: Kim, David and Philippa were visiting prospective dinner venues on
the 15th January including the Anglican and Catholic cathedrals, the Rum
Warehouse, and Anfield (Liverpool Football Stadium). The Tate although
recommended was too small to take the 200 the team were looking to cater for.
3.3 Speakers: Philippa had circulated the notes from the conference team meeting in
December where the sub- themes and possible speakers had been discussed (recirculated with the mins). A note had also gone out with the save the date HTML
asking for ideas for sessions and speakers, none had been received. The following
additional speakers were proposed:
 Closing Speaker:
Former BBC cameraman, Action: Charlene
Journalist Andrew Mcgettigan (Guardian THE)/possibly
after dinner speaker, Action: PCR
 Europe:
LSBU have a different approach, Action: Andy
Dan Shah Policy, trends & future, Action: Charlene
 Consortia:
Higher Education Wales, Action: Bobby
SUIG, Action: Naomi
LUIP, Action: PCR
 Partnerships:
Keith to do a session TNE, Action: Keith
Nigel Healey – bigger picture, Action: Charlene
Anne Marie Graham UKHE IU, Action: Charlene
 Agents:
QAA - Home Office proposals, Action: Keith
UKEC former employee Lou, Action: Martyn
ENZO for panel, Action: Charlene
 Using Alumni
AGCAS, Action Sioned
Oxford best practice, Action: DT, PCR to provide
contact.
 Social Media/ DM
UWE/UniQuest digital tracking/CRM, Action: Keith
MUSION virtual recruitment/holograms, Action:
Martyn
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4 Directors Forum
4.1 Political Party Debate: The Forum’s date had been pushed back to allow time to
recruit the political advisors to the event and the end of March was now proposed.
Any date should avoid the 19th March which was the UKHE IU Higher Education
Forum. Vivienne had provided some initial contacts who had not replied to an email
over the Christmas period. It was agreed that a weightier letter should be
composed and sent out to them, and that a note go out to the Directors so they
could get the date into their Diaries. A draft invite should be composed for the
executive to use to try and engage their VC and MP’s help in getting attendance
from the political parties at the event. UKIP and SNP should be invited. The event
should be handled like question time with questions in advance and more
questions texted through as the event progresses. Initial thoughts on chairing were
that Roisin and Charlene should co Chair, and Vivienne should help facilitate.
Action: Naomi to invite SNP, PCR to ask Vivienne for a UKIP contact, Rosin &
Andy to create weightier invite letter, Directors note and briefing for VC MPs.
PCR to speak to Jerry re use of the Shard as a venue.
5 Lobbying
5.1 Mapping: Rosin was in the process of finishing the next stage of the mapping
exercise and agreed to send the results to Andy by Friday 9th January. The idea
would be to present the mapping in a visual format at the Directors Forum.
5.2 Survey: Andy and Roisin had a call scheduled for the 7th January to discuss the
focus of the survey to Directors. The survey would be discussed with Directors at
the Forum, it would then be circulated and the results presented back at the Forum
during the conference in July. Action: Roisin & Andy to discuss and report
back to the executive.
6 Communities of Practice
6.1 Charlene had proposed at the last meeting that BUILA set up a number of country
market special interest groups to discuss issues, share best practice and to feed
into the UKHE International Unit’s Communities of Practice. SUIG already have
something like this although their groups create outputs that also include joint
events and activities. By establishing these groups BUILA can ensure that the
range of practitioners views are heard. Vivienne is supportive of this initiative. The
executive agreed that these groups would be useful but stressed the need for a
strong chair of each group who had expertise in the specific market, and the need
to have external expert input to make the groups worthwhile. Action: Charlene to
draft terms of reference for the group and an outline chair role. Charlene to
chase Vivienne for the membership of the existing COP before circulation to
the executive for them to identify possible chairs for the groups.
7 External Liaison Feedback
7.1 QAA: International Students Studying in the UK - Guidance for UK Higher
Education Providers. The revised guidance is now due to go out for consultation
before the end of January. Keith will then send to the membership to ensure that
they have input into their institution’s response to the consultation.
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TNE: The TNE Implementation group has now met three times. A proposal for
consultation will be produced shortly. Key suggestions: (i) that there is better
alignment of institutional review and TNE (in country) reviews so that they inform
each other and (ii) there would be a group to oversee the TNE reviews and
determine where such reviews would take place;(iii) more detailed data on TNE
numbers etc are needed and HESA has suggested an approach which would not
need categories of provision (eg franchise, validation) to be agreed but rather
deduced from a series of questions HEIs would answer – in the meantime it is
likely that HEIs would need to provide population data directly to QAA.
7.2 AGCAS: It was possible for BUILA to take out associate membership of AGCAS
which would allow members access to their case studies via a link, but there would
be a cost of £30 – 40, the executive did not feel this was a priority for the
membership at this time. Sioned had followed up with AGCAS what they wanted
from BUILA in the proposed joint training session; they would like to know what
questions BUILA’s members are being asked about employability during the
recruitment process. It was felt that whilst BUILA could be involved on a panel in
the training to answer such issues it would be difficult to come up with 50% of the
content for the day and there were not the resources for BUILA to get involved in
the set-up of the event. It might be best to let AGCAS devise the training, for
BUILA to participate in part of the session and to jointly advertise the session to the
respective memberships. It was felt however that it would be useful to have a
session at the conference linked to the Alumni session looking at global skills and
employer views. Action: Sioned to feed this back to them and to work out the
basis for any conference session.
7.3 BC: Although no progress had been made on an overarching agreement of joint
working, BUILA had been approached by the head of BC in Brazil to explore what
the two organisations might do in this region. Martyn felt that this was the way
forward, to approach the BC around the country market groups being set up. BC
had contacted Philippa about sponsoring again at this year’s conference.
7.4 SUIG: All the relevant organisations with a vested interest in the international
agenda were now meeting under ‘Connected Scotland’. They had a target of
increasing the current 1.3 billion income to 2 billion. Although still in development
the ‘Connected Scotland’ brand could be used in international promotion in the
future. The VC’s of the Scottish universities had been invited to look at
collaborative work and creating a lobbying and influencing manifesto. Part of this
was a PSW discussion and there was a working party looking at how if PSW visas
were to return to Scotland how the process might work. The Scottish government
were very supportive of this as a possibility. A Scottish Directors Forum had also
been set up with Chatham House rules so discussions were not minuted, but given
the number of meeting all this activity entailed Naomi was not sure how viable long
term this would be. SUIG would still continue inspite of these developments.
Action Naomi to keep the executive updated and to feed ideas coming out of
‘Connect Scotland’ into Rosin’s lobbying strategy.
7.5 Wales: Wales were in the process of setting up a regional consortium again
funded by HE Wales and the Welsh government, and were looking at the Scottish
model. Action: Bobby to keep the executive up to date on developments.
7.6 UKCISA: Sioned had attended the UKCISA regional conference in Bristol on
BUILA’s behalf and Naomi the one in Edinburgh. The themes at the events had
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been a little bit loose and there was a real cross section of panel participants
including BIS and representation from the FE sector. In Bristol the focus was
meant to be around how the UK was perceived but the speakers did not really
relate to that in their presentations. Sean Curtis from Exeter had provided a good
introduction and Sioned had covered Indonesia. BC had done some work
comparing Australia with the UK, and in contrast to Australia seen as accessible
and friendly the UK was seen as unfriendly and expensive.
The Edinburgh event was very specific to Scotland. Naomi had focused on the
work of SUIG, PSW visas as an issue were slightly side-tracked, and given the
length of the presentations there had not been time for many questions. At the
remaining conferences Roisin would be representing BUILA at the Manchester
event and Charlene the one in London.
8 Training
8.1 Study Abroad/Mobility: This had now been moved to Portsmouth which
necessitated the change of one of the speakers, there had been a lot of interest in
the training. Action PCR to send out HTML letting all know the change of
venue.
8.2 Partnership Training: Given the popularity of the last workshop and the short lead
in time to create a completely new training session it was agreed to run the
Partnership training again at Aston at the end of April ( 20th). One of the speakers
was no longer in the country and so Naomi agreed to look at replacements
including the possibility of using Chris Yeomans. Action: David to book the room
on the 20th April, Naomi to look at replacement speakers and to draft an
amended flyer. PCR to promote
8.3 101 Recruitment Training: It had been agreed at the last meeting that Naomi,
Martyn and David would re-vamp the newbies training for conference with more
emphasis on marketing plans and agents. It was agreed that as there was limited
time to cover all the topics needed in this one session that there would be
supplementary training on Agents available at the Conference itself. Action:
Naomi to circulate to David, Martyn & Kim the presentations from the last 101
workshop. Naomi to oversee the re-vamp of the training by all, to insure that
it was more interactive by mid-February.
9 Marketing
9.1 Promotional Material: The executive felt that there was a need for a promotional
leaflet about BUILA in addition to the annual report. David and Philippa agreed to
meet to discuss this and to revisit the membership pack idea. Action: PCR &
David to discuss and progress.
10 A.O.B.
10.1 Due to the time it was agreed to discuss the Regional Roadshows at the next
meeting.
10.2 Date of the next meeting March 10th London.
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